De todo un poco!
The Spanish supreme court prosecutor’s office on Wednesday archived a three-pronged probe into the finances of former King Juan Carlos I.
The ex-monarch was under investigation for allegations that he accepted illegal kick-backs worth 65 million euros ($100 million) related to a high-speed rail project in Saudi Arabia, as well as for claims he used credit cards linked to foreign accounts not registered in his name and for his alleged murky links to offshore funds.
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Former President Donald Trump has appealed a judge’s decision requiring he answer questions under oath in New York state’s civil investigation into his business practices — a widely expected move that’s likely to prolong the fight over his testimony by months.
Lawyers for Trump and his two eldest children filed papers on Monday with the appellate division of the state’s trial court, seeking to overturn Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 17 ruling. They argue ordering the Trumps to testify violates their constitutional rights because their answers could be used in a parallel criminal investigation.
In an eight-page ruling, Engoron set a March 10 deadline for Trump and his eldest children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., to sit for depositions. Lawyers for the Trumps asked the appellate court for a stay to spare them from questioning while it considers the matter.
The court did not set a date for arguments. It typically issues decisions several months after that, but it could be inclined to rule on an expedited basis given the urgency of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ investigation and the Trumps’ desire to swiftly overturn Engoron’s ruling.
A message seeking comment was left with James’ office. In a statement on Friday, as lawyers for the Trumps were preparing their appeal, the attorney general signaled she was ready for a long fight to get them to testify.
“Donald J. Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Ivanka Trump were ordered by the court to comply with our lawful investigation into Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization’s financial dealings,” James said in the statement. “While they have the right to seek a delay, they cannot deter us from following the facts and the law wherever they may lead. Make no mistake: My office will continue to pursue this case without fear or favor because no one is above the law.”
Trump did not immediately comment on the appeal. In a statement following Engoron’s decision, he called the ruling “a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in history.”
“THERE IS NO CASE!” he said, claiming he’s unable to get a fair hearing in New York “because of the hatred of me by Judges and the judiciary” and accusing James’ office of “doing everything within their corrupt discretion to interfere with my business relationships, and with the political process.”
James, a Democrat, has said her investigation has uncovered evidence that Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, used “fraudulent or misleading” valuations of assets such as golf courses and skyscrapers to get loans and tax benefits.
In his ruling, Engoron wrote: “A State Attorney General commences investigating a business entity, uncovers copious evidence of possible financial fraud, and wants to question, under oath, several of the entities’ principals, including its namesake. She has the clear right to do so.”
If Engoron’s decision is upheld, it could force Trump into a tough decision about whether to answer questions or stay silent, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Anything Trump says in a civil deposition could be used against him in the criminal probe being overseen by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
At a hearing prior to Engoron’s decision, Trump’s lawyers argued that having him sit for a civil deposition is an improper attempt to get around a state law barring prosecutors from calling someone to testify before a criminal grand jury without giving them immunity.
A lawyer for the attorney general’s office told Engoron that it wasn’t unusual to have civil and criminal investigations proceeding at the same time, and Engoron rejected a request from lawyers for the Trumps to pause the civil probe until the criminal matter is over.
Last summer, spurred by evidence uncovered in James’ civil investigation, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Trump’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, and the Trump Organization with tax fraud, alleging he collected more than $1.7 million in off-the-books compensation. Weisselberg and the company have pleaded not guilty. The future of the criminal probe was thrown into question last week when the two prosecutors leading it abruptly quit.
Lawyers for the Trumps asked the appellate court Monday to consider three questions:
— Whether James’ office is violating their rights by issuing subpoenas for their testimony while also participating in the criminal investigation.
— Whether protections for grand jury witnesses under state law, such as immunity, can be “eviscerated, if the same agency involved in the criminal investigation simply opens a ‘civil’ investigation into the very same matters.”
— Whether Engoron erred in rejecting the Trumps’ contention that James has engaged in selective prosecution.
In his ruling, Engoron said, the thousands of pages of evidence he’s reviewed in the case show there’s sufficient basis for continuing the investigation and undercut “the notion that this ongoing investigation is based on personal animus, not facts and law.”
At least three federal agencies last year began investigating working conditions for migrants in this growing southern hub for the U.S. poultry industry, according to people familiar with the probes.
The agencies have been looking for evidence of exploitation of Hispanic migrants in the area after an unusually large number of unaccompanied minors were released from federal shelters to sponsor families here last year, these people told Reuters.
A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services probe focused on whether minors were falling victim to traffickers exploiting them for labor, three sources familiar with the investigations said. While investigators have discovered no evidence of child trafficking, they found “exploitative” working conditions for some migrants, the sources added, without providing more details.
The U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, for their part, have also investigated staffing and work conditions in the area, people familiar with those probes told Reuters. None of the probes have yet led to criminal charges or civil penalties, and it’s unclear whether they will.
Spokespeople at the three agencies declined to comment on ongoing investigations. Some details of the probes were first reported by Bloomberg Law.
The investigations follow worries among federal employees overseeing the release of unaccompanied minors caught crossing the Mexican border into the United States. These officials were concerned by the growing number of kids headed to Enterprise, where poultry farms and processing plants offer high demand for employment.
Reuters on Monday profiled one recently arrived Guatemalan minor who uses false identification to work at one plant near Enterprise. The teen found a job with ease, forgoing school as she races to repay debts to smugglers who got her across the U.S. border.
The U.S. government has been on heightened alert for trafficking of migrant minors into the poultry industry since 2014, when authorities discovered Guatemalan teens working without pay and living in ramshackle trailers at an Ohio egg farm.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees Homeland Security Investigations, has said under President Joe Biden that it is shifting its enforcement focus at places of work. Instead of arresting workers for immigration violations, it is targeting employers who exploit undocumented migrants.
Poultry industry workers in and around Enterprise told Reuters that migrants, including minors, easily obtain fake credentials and supply those to staffing firms who help them find work in area plants.
The firms, they said, sometimes dock workers’ pay for services, including transportation to and from the workplace, and deny them benefits like overtime pay, sick days, time off and medical coverage.
Labor law experts say large poultry processors at times have relied on staffing firms to avoid liability for hiring undocumented laborers. The staffing firms, as the direct employers, by law become responsible for vetting applicants and determining if they are allowed to work.
A previous federal investigation into the hiring of poultry workers in Alabama led to criminal convictions last October.
The federal trial in northern Alabama illustrated abusive practices by one staffing firm there and how lucrative the migrant-recruiting business can be. The jury convicted a married couple, Deivin and Crystal Escalante, on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to transport migrants illegally.
According to court documents and transcripts from the trial, the Escalantes supplied undocumented workers, including several minors, to a plant owned by Mar-Jac Poultry Inc. in Jasper, Alabama.
The Escalantes pleaded not guilty and are now awaiting sentencing. They referred questions to Gregory Reid, Deivin’s lawyer. Reid told Reuters that Mar-Jac contracted the couple because of their connections in the local Hispanic community.
Mar-Jac, based in Gainesville, Georgia, hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing. Linda Cox, Mar-Jac’s human resources manager, said the poultry processor cooperated in the investigation and “had a written contract with the contractor requiring lawful workers.”
In trial testimony, Deivin Escalante said that Mar-Jac paid the couple $175 per day for each worker. The Escalantes then paid employees around $120 a day, he said. Over three years, the couple received over $16 million in revenue from Mar-Jac, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Before federal agents arrested the couple in October 2020, the Escalantes bought multiple properties and luxury cars.
In the two years since COVID-19 began ravaging the United States, virtually every aspect of the pandemic has been politicized, often to the detriment of efforts to bring the disease under control and to treat its victims. Now, though, members of Congress are taking the first steps toward a bipartisan effort to understand the pandemic’s origins and to assess the federal government’s response.
The two most senior members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions have begun circulating a proposal to create a 12-member commission of private citizens with broad authority to investigate the origins of the disease – and how the Trump and Biden administrations responded to it. The initiative appears to have broad support among members of both parties.
The two lawmakers, Health Committee Chair Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, and the committee’s senior Republican, Richard Burr of North Carolina, have modeled the effort on the commission that was created to investigate the origins of the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001. That body won bipartisan praise for its exhaustive analysis of the events leading up to the attacks.
The proposal is part of a larger piece of legislation called the “Prepare for and Respond to Existing Viruses, Emerging New Threats, and Pandemics Act,” or the “PREVENT Pandemics Act,” for short. In addition to creating the task force, the bill would expand the capacity of public health agencies to respond to disease outbreaks, boost research and development, and strengthen the supply chain for medical products.
National task force
The panel proposed in the bill would be known as the “National Task Force on the Response of the United States to the COVID-19 Pandemic,” and would have the authority to issue subpoenas to compel testimony and the disclosure of records as necessary for the investigation.
Kristin Urquiza, one of the co-founders of an advocacy group for families affected by the pandemic known as Marked by COVID, told VOA she was encouraged by Murray and Burr’s proposal, calling it the best version of a framework for an investigative panel she has seen so far.
“Marked by COVID has been calling for a commission or a task force for well over a year,” Urquiza said. “It’s a top priority for our families to really ensure that we have an accurate record of what happened and why. Not only so we can have answers as to why our loved ones were lost, but so we can pass on learnings to ourselves and future generations for any mistakes that were made, and so that we can do better next time that there’s a public health crisis.”
Political minefield
So far, discussion of the pandemic’s origins and the federal response have tended to be highly politicized. In the earliest days of the pandemic, then-President Donald Trump was eager to downplay the severity of the crisis, a stance many of his political supporters adopted.
This helped create a sharp divide in how Republicans and Democrats across the country viewed the federal response to the pandemic.
As COVID-19 deaths in America grew from the thousands to the tens of thousands, Trump made a very public effort to blame China, the country where the disease was first identified, for the global health crisis. Arguments over the degree of China’s responsibility for the spread of the virus have also taken on a sharply partisan tone.
Efforts to blame China
Many Republicans in Congress have thrown their support behind the theory that the virus that causes COVID-19 escaped from a laboratory in China, where the coronavirus was being studied. This theory is supported by the fact that there is a major infectious disease research facility located near the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected.
Democrats, on the whole, have been more inclined to back the view put forward by the World Health Organization (WHO), which suggested that the virus migrated into the human population through close contact with wild animals – probably bats – that were already infected with a version of it.
The WHO, however, has sent mixed signals about the origins of the virus. A report issued by the body last year argued that it was extremely unlikely that the virus reached the human population through a laboratory leak. However, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director, said that China refused to share important data from early cases of COVID-19, hampering the ability of the WHO’s investigators to complete a thorough analysis.
In a series of congressional hearings, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical adviser to President Biden, has been aggressively questioned by Republican members of Congress who have accused him of withholding information about research at the Wuhan institute of Virology that was partially funded by the U.S. government.
For his part, Fauci has publicly supported calls for an investigation into the origin of the virus.
Hope for a balanced inquiry
In the earlier stages of the pandemic, Republicans were suspicious of any commission tasked with investigating the pandemic, out of concern that its findings would be used as a cudgel against the Trump administration.
Urquiza, of Marked by COVID, said that the passage of time has made it less likely that the findings of a committee will be seen as politicized, because both parties can be seen as having some successes and some failures in the COVID-19 response.
“Our worry from day one was that a commission would turn into a witch hunt for either China or President Trump,” she said. “Part of what we’ve seen now, over the course of the last year, is that the Biden administration now has a pandemic track record, and that has opened up the field to allow for both praise and criticism of what has happened.”
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